


I Bet on Losing Dogs

by StopitGerald



Series: The Inquisitor and The Commander [3]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Character Death, Chronic Pain, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, Lyrium Addiction, Lyrium Withdrawal, Support and Love in hard times, Terminal Illnesses, Unrequited Love, mostly sad I’m sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 07:16:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29256567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StopitGerald/pseuds/StopitGerald
Summary: “I know they’re losing and I pay for my place, by the ring, where I’ll be looking in their eyes when they’re downed.”-Mitski
Relationships: Female Inquisitor/Cullen Rutherford
Series: The Inquisitor and The Commander [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2159928
Comments: 1
Kudos: 5





	I Bet on Losing Dogs

**Author's Note:**

> Obviously an AU where Cullen succumbs to his lyrium addiction and eventually passes away. 
> 
> Just me writing about my inquisitor’s thoughts on this situation, coupled with about 600 replays of the title song.

She always knew from the beginning that she was fighting a battle she would lose, when it came to him.

So lost in his own delusions of what he should be, what he had to be, for the inquisition, for the soldiers, for the prying eyes expecting too much of him. 

Constantly berating himself, pushing himself until he broke like the dam over Crestwood. Using himself up like a candle burning to the wick. Calloused hands gripping a sword, a quill, fistfuls of his own hair to rip out when the withdrawals overtake his sense.

He would ask for advice, sometimes, he would seek out the seeker, as if hearing someone say something he refused to believe and would never accept would somehow make a difference. 

No matter how many times she had stroked his golden, sweat soaked curls, reassured him of his importance, his strength, his lion’s resolve, it never seemed to ease the pain he put himself through. 

It never stopped him from pacing his office in wee hours of the night, it didn’t stop the nightmares from pulling him from her arms and into the spiral of depression and delusion he’s spent so long in.

It doesn’t get better, and she can tell. She knows it won’t get better.

She knows he will not ever make the decision to stop his addiction for himself, hanging precariously from that edge of almost-there. Stuck between feeling useless and worthless without it as withdrawals tear him apart from the inside and feeling the lyrium slowly remove every part of him that is him until he is nothing. Until he does not even remember her name anymore.

He cries on bad nights, and on worse ones he shouts, he throws things. He tears at this hair because it hurts less than the throb between his eyebrows. 

She tries to soothe him how she can. Spending nights with him, trying spells and potions and gentle, loving words that sound foreign in his faraway ears and his listless gaze as he lays still as a board in their bed. 

It helps, on good nights. But mostly he just keeps slipping down that slope, and she grips him by the scruff and digs her heels into the earth to keep him from falling any further. But he’s heavy and she is only so strong.

He will fall, eventually.

It doesn’t stop her.

If anything, the knowledge that Cullen will one day fade, disappear, that he will blink away from her, it envigorates her caretaking of him.

It makes every kiss that much sweeter, like fresh pastries from the kitchens, and every moment she spends walking the grounds with his shaking, sweaty palm in hers, slow and warm like honey. 

It makes every nightmare and every day they rise with the sun feel like a novelty, and she hugs him with both arms and compliments him for no reason other than that she has a working tongue and a functioning brain.

She spends all of her time with him, and she sees that he is failing in his battle, and she knows others see, too. But she shields him from it all, stands between him and any invasion, any scrutiny. 

She brushes his hair and shaves his stubble for him, and his appetite wanes and he stops smiling when she coos his name. And she just tries harder, every day. 

Cassandra asks her, once, why she works so tirelessly, not as a service, but as an act of adoration and love, to keep him afloat when it is obvious he will not pull through. Why she pours so much into a man she will lose.

It makes her smile, melancholy as tears roll down her cheeks and visions of golden eyes and blonde, morning-tousled curls dance behind her eyes. How is she to explain to the seeker that any labor of love is not labor at all? That it is not about what she will receive or lose, in the end. 

It’s about  _ him _ .

She knows what is going to happen, but she will be  _ there.  _ For him, supporting him, making sure the others can see- can see her rooting for him, even though he is destined to lose. Even those on the way down need someone, and someone who has loved them, even in their worst, counts more than anything else.

And finally, in months coming, when his addiction claims him, she does not shield the unyielding agony that overtakes her heart, she doesn’t hide the inquisitor tears that stream down her face as she stands vigil for her commander, her best friend, her Cullen. 

And then she thinks she knows how to answer Cassandra’s question, but there is no more sense to it. 

She rises her face to the sun and lets it remind her of basking on the battlements with him, and she can feel his hand in hers, sweat and all. 


End file.
